For the first time since a Russian Soyuz rocket launched 73 satellites in July 2017, Glavkosmos, a subsidiary of Russian state space corporation Roscosmos, is confirming a problem with the Fregat upper stage. “According to the telemetry, an anomaly was detected in one of the Fregat’s low-thrust engines,” Glavkosmos told the Russian internet newspaper, Gazeta.ru, according to a March 12 article. For months, satellite and insurance executives have tried to determine why a group of cubesats launched into the same orbit failed, while other spacecraft on the Soyuz flight worked.…

SAN FRANCISCO — An insurance company paid Astro Digital’s claim for the loss of two Landmapper cubesats sent into orbit in July 2017 on a Russian Soyuz rocket after the Earth imaging and analysis company proved the failure stemmed from a launch problem, according to two space industry executives. “I can confirm that Astro Digital did have launch insurance policies for the Landmapper-BC1 and Landmapper-BC2 satellites,” Chris Biddy, Astro Digital chief executive and co-founder, said by email. “However, we cannot comment further due to non-disclosure agreements.” Astro Digital insured the…

WASHINGTON — The successful launch of an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) Jan. 11 marked not just the return to flight of the rocket but also major achievements for several of the companies with payloads on board the vehicle. The PSLV lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India at 10:59 p.m. Eastern Jan. 11, carrying a Cartosat-2 remote sensing satellite and 30 secondary payloads. All the payloads were successfully deployed into two low Earth orbits within two hours of launch. The launch was the first for…

WASHINGTON — Nineteen satellites launched on a Soyuz rocket Nov. 28 are now widely assumed to be lost, with one of the companies involved in the mission stating that the launch was a failure. The Soyuz-2.1b rocket lifted off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East early Nov. 28. After initial reports of a successful launch, the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos said it could not contact the vehicle’s primary payload, the Meteor-M No.2-1 weather satellite, because it was not in its planned orbit. Neither Roscosmos nor Glavkosmos, the…

WASHINGTON — Controllers have been unable to contact a weather satellite launched on a Soyuz rocket from the country’s new spaceport Nov. 28, raising fears of a launch failure. The Soyuz-2.1b rocket lifted off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East at 12:41 a.m. Eastern. Its primary payload was the Meteor-M No.2-1 polar-orbiting weather satellite, with 18 small satellites flying as secondary payloads. The launch initially appeared to go as planned, but the Russian state space corporation Roscosmos said in a statement several hours after launch that it was…

SAN FRANCISCO — Astro Digital, an Earth imaging and analysis company, has confirmed that two satellites it launched as secondary payloads on a Soyuz rocket in July have failed, joining several other satellites that mysteriously failed on that mission. In a Sept. 8 blog post, the company declared that the two Landmapper cubesats it launched July 14 on a Russian Soyuz 2.1a rocket are “officially unresponsive” and that the firm will “direct all our team’s energy towards our launch next month.” Soon after the July 14 launch, Bronwyn Agrios, Astro…